NTSB: Where are federal standards on AV safety?

The question was straightforward.

Bruce Landsberg, one of three members of the National Transportation Safety Board, recounted the efforts by some states to understand and evaluate the self-driving technology that's being tested on their roads. Now he wanted to know if federal safety regulators had made similar efforts.

"Is NHTSA learning?"

His question was posed to a group of NTSB investigators assembled in Washington, D.C., to discuss their findings from a probe of a fatal crash involving an Uber self-driving test vehicle.

Silence followed — perhaps an answer in and of itself.

"I realize I'm putting you in a difficult position," Landsberg said.

There has always been an inherent tension between the two federal agencies. Operating independently of any other transportation entity, the NTSB is charged with conducting crash investigations and making recommendations on how to make transportation safer.

But it can only make recommendations. The authority to implement new regulations, at least in terms of highway safety, lies with the NHTSA, a division of the larger U.S. Department of Transportation.

The friction increased during last week's meeting, at which the board and investigators examined the lack of federal safety standards concerning the testing and deployment of automated vehicles.

Most of the NTSB's findings cited Uber's lack of a safety culture as a contributor to the circumstances surrounding the March 18, 2018, crash, in which one of the company's self-driving test vehicles struck and killed pedestrian Elaine Herzberg in Tempe, Ariz. But the NTSB's findings also noted that NHTSA has implemented an "inadequate safety self- assessment process."

Through three iterations of its federal automated-vehicle policy, crafted across Democratic and Republican administrations over four years, NHTSA has issued voluntary guidance, not regulations.

It has suggested to manufacturers that they submit voluntary safety self-assessments, but as NHTSA has emphasized, automakers are under no obligation to do so. So far, 16 manufacturers have provided self-assessments. The quality and depth has varied.

"Some have a good amount of detail while others, frankly, read like marketing brochures," said Ensar Becic, an NTSB human performance investigator.

In its executive summary of the Uber crash, the NTSB recommended that NHTSA require companies that are testing to submit safety self-assessments, and that the federal regulator establish a process for evaluating the reports and determine whether necessary safeguards were in place.

Board member Jennifer Homendy was more candid in her criticism of NHTSA, eviscerating the idea that voluntary assessments amounted to adequate oversight of this fledgling technology.

"They've put technology advancement here before saving lives," she said, reading the federal automated vehicle policy. "It's called 'Automated Driving Systems: A Vision For Safety.' They should rename it 'A Vision For Lax Safety.' This is actually laughable."

NHTSA is conducting its own investigation into the Tempe crash, and the agency says it will release its report once it's completed. On last week's NTSB recommendations, a spokesperson said the regulator "welcomes NTSB's report and will carefully review it and accompanying recommendations."

The Uber case marks the second in recent years in which the NTSB has made recommendations to NHTSA concerning new automotive technology.

In its investigation of a fatal crash involving Tesla's Autopilot driver-assist system in Williston, Fla., the NTSB recommended NHTSA develop methods to ensure such features are used as intended and that data- reporting standards are defined. NHTSA has not acted upon these recommendations.

"We feel like they're the low-hanging fruit," Kris Poland, deputy director of the NTSB Office of Highway Safety, said during last week's hearings.

While safety advocates aren't necessarily exuding optimism about the possibility that NHTSA will shift away from voluntary guidance, they do think the meeting and findings have brought their concerns into stark focus.

"The federal government is actively encouraging a corporate laboratory experience where real people are unknowingly being used as crash-test dummies," said Jason Levine, executive director of the Center for Auto Safety.

It "has done nothing to provide AV safety oversight in the 18 months since Elaine Herzberg's death. … If not now, when?"